The Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger is approaching, and the marketing war of Internet giants is also playing more and more flavorful. Set five blessings, red envelope rain, New Year flavor card, play games, open treasure chests... All kinds of gameplay can be described as a variety of tricks. For hundreds of millions of red envelope wars, the user's enthusiasm for participation has also been polarized, and many users are happy in it, "mainly to figure out the taste of the year and the fun of the game"; but there are also some old users who are no longer "cold" to this, "mainly some platform rules are a bit complicated, a meal operation is as fierce as a tiger, a look into the pocket of two pieces of five, a little tired."
Total billions
The annual Spring Festival red envelope war is here again. On January 27, the Beijing Business Daily reporter noted that platforms including Alipay, JD.com, Douyin, Kuaishou, Baidu, Weibo and other platforms have launched red envelope activities in conjunction with the Spring Festival, and the forms of participation still include the collection of five blessings, watching the Spring Festival Gala "shake a shake", collecting New Year's flavor cards, playing games, etc. According to incomplete statistics, as of now, during the Spring Festival in 2022, the total amount of red envelopes of each Internet department has exceeded 6 billion yuan.
For example, the familiar Alipay Five Blessings activity has entered its 7th year.
In 2022, Alipay set five blessings opened again, as last year, users can also get fu cards through AR sweeping fu, writing fu characters and other ways, after collecting "patriotic", "rich and strong", "harmonious", "friendly" and "dedicated" five fu cards, everyone can divide the red envelopes together; the difference is that this year, Alipay also launched a new way to set fu cards such as shaking and watching videos, in addition to the new ways of playing such as cultural relics customized AR scanning fu and digital collections.
In addition, Jingdong, which took over the Spring Festival Gala, also received widespread attention with the interactive activity of "watching the Spring Festival Gala, opening Jingdong and shaking, and dividing 1.5 billion red envelopes and good things". From January 24, users can log in to the JD App to book the Spring Festival Gala interactive activities in advance. On January 31, Jingdong will officially launch the "Spring Festival Gala Interaction" activity, users only need to follow the host's password when watching the Spring Festival Gala, pick up their mobile phones and open the Jingdong App to "shake", they can participate in the interaction, and divide 15 billion yuan of red envelopes and good things.
Similarly, the short video giant Douyin has not fallen, it opened the "Warm China Year" activity, from January 24 to February 6, users in Douyin, Today's Headlines, Watermelon Video and other 8 clients to complete the collection of Annual Flavor Cards, participate in red envelope rain, shake a shake up cash and other activities, you can divide 2 billion yuan of red envelopes. Kuaishou announced that it would send 2.2 billion yuan in red envelopes during the Spring Festival.
In addition, there are Baidu, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo and other platforms, some of which have opened related theme activities in the Winter Olympics, and some have set up digital collections and golden gifts for the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger in addition to red envelope rewards.
It can be seen that the Spring Festival red envelope activities of various institutional platforms this year still continue the style of previous years, showing a state of "a hundred flowers blooming", which not only continues their own brand characteristics and main gameplay, but also combines the current technology trends and consumption trends to further explore product innovation and functional innovation.
Su Xiaorui, a senior analyst at Analysys, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that behind the Spring Festival red envelope is a reflection of the "attention economy". Internet giants have both technological advantages and traffic advantages, with the help of such an important festival atmosphere as the Spring Festival and huge consumer demand, combined with the red envelope scene to obtain customers, can attract the attention of users, and then force traffic monetization.
Aesthetic fatigue?
The Spring Festival red envelope war has lasted for many years, in order to attract consumers to participate, various Internet giants can be described as racking their brains, red envelope activities continue to emerge, and the form of rewards is constantly changing.
However, with hundreds of millions of red envelopes and escalating gameplay, not all consumers are willing to "pay". In the past two days, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily reporter has found that for hundreds of millions of red envelope wars, user participation enthusiasm has also been polarized. On the one hand, many users enjoy it, but there are also some old users who are no longer "cold" to this, "mainly some platform rules are a bit complicated, a meal operation is as fierce as a tiger, a look into the pocket of two pieces of five, a little tired."
As consumer Li Hua (not his real name) said, "I haven't participated this year, mainly because I'm not interested." In the first few years, the collection of five blessings, grabbing red envelopes and freshness, although the amount is relatively small, I am still willing to share the New Year's flavor with everyone. But after a few years, first, there is no sense of freshness, and the red envelopes I grab are getting smaller and smaller, so I am not willing to spend time paying attention."
Li Hua said bluntly that now each Internet platform has its own way of playing, but after participating in it for several years, he is no longer willing to spend time to look at these complex rules. Maybe the freshness has faded, and everyone prefers to be "simple and rough", otherwise the harvest does not match the energy.
Wang Feng (pseudonym), another who is brushing short videos, also told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the collection of five blessings, playing games, and grabbing red envelopes are group effects, and everyone used to go home to play, and it was fun, but some rules were too complicated to affect participation.
Judging from user feedback, the Spring Festival red envelope war can initially attract users with "freshness", but with the increase in the number of participating institutional platforms and the intensification of the homogeneous attributes of the red envelope model, users will inevitably feel "aesthetic fatigue" and maintain a cold attitude towards activities that lack novelty or have a low probability of winning the lottery and have too complicated rules.
However, there are also many consumers who say that they are still happy with the red envelope war, mainly because the platform will take the initiative to push, they can participate in it with their hands, how much to grab is secondary, and more importantly, it brings new year flavor and fun.
Retaining users is the core
"Combined with the Spring Festival, various platforms are competing for user traffic. From the current point of view of the red envelope war, the participation is decreasing, mainly because the way of obtaining red envelopes is becoming more and more monotonous and boring, and lack of novelty, so the Internet platform urgently needs to come up with a new way of playing, or to make certain improvements in gameplay and sociality. In addition, many Internet platforms expand the application ecology and promote the diversification of Internet platforms through the red envelope war, but the other secondary applications of diversification are not sticky and do not play a role in stabilizing traffic. Pan Helin, member of the Information and Communication Economy Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and executive dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said.
The industry believes that at the moment when the traffic dividend is peaking, how to retain users for a long time has also become the key.
In this regard, Pan and Lin suggested that for similar marketing activities, Internet giants should still innovate their ways of playing, and traffic starts from fun, rather than smashing traffic with red envelopes. At the same time, in the process of promoting diversification, it is also necessary to have a highly sticky diversified application to attract users.
Su Xiaorui suggested that on the one hand, giants need to lower the threshold of participation and mobilize the enthusiasm of user participation with easy-to-understand rules; on the other hand, they also need to optimize the user experience through technological innovation and product function innovation. Previously, some platforms have been criticized by the market for "slashing a knife", and it is recommended that Internet giants conscientiously abide by the relevant norms of network marketing, clarify the rules of activities, and do not deliberately "routine" consumers.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Sihong